Fortis Inc. (TSE:FTS) Receives Average Rating of “Reduce” from Brokerages

Shares of Fortis Inc. (TSE:FTS) have earned a consensus rating of “Reduce” from the eight analysts that are presently covering the stock, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation and six have assigned a hold recommendation to the company. The average 12-month price objective among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is C$60.89.

FTS has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Raymond James cut shares of Fortis from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. CIBC increased their target price on Fortis from C$63.00 to C$64.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 8th.

Fortis Price Performance

Shares of TSE FTS opened at C$62.16 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of C$30.78 billion, a PE ratio of 19.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.01 and a beta of 0.23. The company has a quick ratio of 0.36, a current ratio of 0.69 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 128.59. The business has a 50 day moving average price of C$60.73 and a two-hundred day moving average price of C$60.24. Fortis has a fifty-two week low of C$51.02 and a fifty-two week high of C$63.75.

Fortis (TSE:FTS) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, November 5th. The company reported C$0.85 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of C$0.81 by C$0.04. Fortis had a net margin of 14.35% and a return on equity of 7.44%. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.84 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Fortis will post 3.3419913 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Fortis Cuts Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Saturday, March 1st. Stockholders of record on Saturday, March 1st will be issued a dividend of $0.615 per share. This represents a $2.46 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.96%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 18th. Fortis’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 77.12%.

Insider Transactions at Fortis

In other Fortis news, Senior Officer Jocelyn Perry sold 11,809 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of C$63.19, for a total value of C$746,178.83. Insiders own 0.04% of the company’s stock.

Fortis Company Profile

Fortis owns and operates 10 utility transmission and distribution assets in Canada and the United States, serving more than 3.4 million electricity and gas customers. The company has smaller stakes in electricity generation and several Caribbean utilities. ITC operates electric transmission in seven U.S.